[SOLVED] Mouse going crazy (right clicking as it moves)

[flyingrhino]

Hi,

This morning I powered on my 17.2 Mint / XFCE , then immediately when the login screen appeared, I choose the power off button from the top right corner and did a good poweroff, waiting until the PC was fully off.
From this stage onwards the mouse *sometimes* goes crazy -
When I power on the PC and pass the login page , when XFCE loads, as I move the mouse around the screen it randomly does right clicks as it moves.
Note - this doesn't happen all the time, only once every 2-3 boots
When the 'crazy mouse' does happen, I can't use my mouse any more so I poweroff the machine from a terminal (sudo poweroff)

I'm using standard mint:
# uname -a
Linux kenslpc 3.16.0-38-generic #52~14.04.1-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 8 09:43:57 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I5 skylake on gigabyte MB. Evoluent 4Left wired mouse

Has anyone encountered this before?

I have a clonezilla image from several days ago, therefore I can restore my machine to an older state without losing much (only new installs which are easy enough to recover . My data is separate and backed up too)
However, before I do this I'd like to know what got corrupted (and also update this forum for other users who might encounter the same problem)

Has anyone encountered this situation before?
Alternatively, how can I compare the data inside my clonezilla backup to the corrupted PC ? I'm sure there will be some XFCE file corrupted somewhere
This might be a bit challenging since I've installed more stuff after the backup was done, therefore there will be several new files and modified stuff like menus, etc

Thanks

[JosephM]

Just in case, did you eliminate the possibility of a hardware issue already? I just went through something similar and switching out the mouse for another one of the exact same make and model fixed the issue. They do go bad on occasion

[flyingrhino]

Just in case, did you eliminate the possibility of a hardware issue already?

Yes, I powered off the PC completely then left it off for a while until the power supply discharged completely
...the mouse still gets USB power when the PC is off, I can see this because there is a blue logo on the mouse that lights up when the pc is plugged in and OFF

This also happened when I powered off the PC for about an hour when I had lunch

Strange thing is that this doesn't happen EVERY time I power on , but it started happening today, first instance after the rapid *legal* power off. This makes it hard to debug because it's not consistently failing.

I'm going to do a byte by byte file comparison on the clonezilla image. I still haven't figured out how to compare the clonezilla to the live PC (probably the solution is a booting off a live distro and mounting both the image and the PC) , but if I encounter any problems I'm going to make another clonezilla and extract both .gz files to different directories - then compare the two (this is easy enough to do...)

I just went through something similar and switching out the mouse for another one of the exact same make and model fixed the issue. They do go bad on occasion

I'm quite sure it's a consequence of the rapid poweroff, and if I don't succeed in finding anything in the image comparison, I'll keep the suspect clonezilla image anyway, and return the last good one. Then if the problem goes away for a while I'll know it's a corrupt OS.
You'll know the result when I rename to [SOLVED] in the subject

[MtnDewManiac]

Is your mouse (or its receiver, if it is cordless) plugged into a USB 3 port? If so, try switching it to a USB 2 one, if available.

USB ports are often colored blue for ease of identification. But (IIRC) I read that they may not always be on all devices.

Regards,
MDM

[shengchieh]

Try your mouse on a different computer (even if it is a Windows machine).

Also try a different mouse on your computer.

I had several mouses gone berserk.

Sheng-Chieh

[flyingrhino]

In response to last two posts - it's a wired mouse plugged in to a USB2 port
The mouse didn't go crazy in the last ~6 boots , but I haven't been on this PC all week (the reason for my late reply here too)
I have a second identical mouse for my laptop, I will swap the two, while using the same port - so that I can eliminate items one at a time

Tomorrow I am going to do the diff between the two images , I still am curious what it will expose

[flyingrhino]

Tomorrow I am going to do the diff between the two images , I still am curious what it will expose

Ok, finally got a chance to mount the clonezilla images and do the diff
I was surprised to see that nothing significant in /etc/ or in /usr/

Most of what I found different is located in my home directory.
Within that most of the changes come from opera and thunderbird cache and changes to xfce menu from additional software

Finally, I looked in all the obvious files and can't see anything related to mouse

Giving up ! ( Not exactly [SOLVED] , but I want to close this case )
If the problem returns I'll restore the old image, meanwhile I want to continue using the PC as it is out of curiosity if the problem ever returns

[flyingrhino]

Mouse went crazy again. This time I caught it.

Turns out the evoluent wired mice have a known problem - the wire at the base of the mouse wears out over time and causes the mouse to do strange things.
It is now disconnecting once in a while from the PC and a search online about this mouse mentions this defect.
Earlier it didn't happen often or consistently enough for me to realize this, but now it is failing badly and a hardware fault is obvious

BTW, it is also registering more than one click sometimes when I click it once, again a known problem with the switches.

Mint was fine after all

[Moem]

So... it was a hardware issue, just like the first reply suggested?
Well, who woulda thunk!

[flyingrhino]

So... it was a hardware issue, just like the first reply suggested?
Well, who woulda thunk!

An expert has knowledge, a guru has experience !
Respect given to those who know more than me

The wire at the mouse base was failing intermittently therefore gave negative failure when I moved the mouse. And the problem went away for a long time, further supporting my claim of an OS fault. But now since the failure is consistent, it's a dead giveaway to faulty hardware.
Anyway, pulling out the old soldering iron this weekend...